chapka

Matthew 10:2-4

Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus;
10:4 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

Luke 6:14-16

And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles; Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.

Mark 3:14-19 agrees with Matthew, and makes it clear from the context that it's talking about the same time period as is Luke.

Who were the twelve apostles? Was there an apostle Lebbaeus Thaddaeus? Was there an apostle Judas brother of James? The text is clear that there were only twelve apostles, and since both names are given for Lebbaeus Thaddaeus there seems to be no chance that this is the same person as Judas. Contradiction.

Diogenes the Cynic

24 hours left until what?

PoodleLovinPessimist

Of course there are no "contradictions" in the Bible. The Bible is not internally connected in a logically rigorous way: It is not a formal logical system.

There are tons of apparent inconsistencies in the Bible, but those can be explained away. The lack of contradictions in the Bible is an artifact of of how it's read by believers. It's an unimpressive and unpersuasive assertion.

The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter series, Carlos Castenada's Don Juan series, and pretty much any text that is itself not a formal logical system--even a collection of gibberish--is without contradiction in precisely the same manner.

I'm soooooooo impressed. NOT! :snooze:

LP675

Until additional posts on the subject will cease to be useful for my original primary research purpose. I am hoping to find a ‘good one’ for discussion with a bible scholar tomorrow. Post made after that time will also be interesting of course.

Also Diogenes thank you for your extensive post.

Kosh

Whew. Thought for a second there you had an inside line on the rapture....

LP675

lol

ekl

I'm not going to do homework for anyone else either, but I do suggest looking at the 'gnostic gospels' (you know, the Deep Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi Scrolls - the gospels found there). Some nice big contradictions there. The major one being that the gospel of Thomas has no mention of miracles performed by Jesus or the resurrection. Of course, a lot of Christians don't count these ones, but it's worth keeping in mind that they were not included in the Bible and were hidden because they did not tell the story of Jesus the way the church, in its search for power, wanted him portrayed.

Roland

This whole business with contradictions is an exercise in futility because inerrantists will always find some way around them.

But here goes one anyway:

Mark, in Chapter 11, says that, after Jesus cursed the fig tree, He and the disciples saw THE NEXT DAY that the tree had withered.

However, in Matthew 21, it is said that the tree withered IMMEDIATELY.

Yahzi

We poor atheists cannot compete with such crushing logic and rapier-like wit.

You win.

JoeWallack

JW:
The No Sign/Yes Sign error between "Mark" and "Matthew" may be the most important illustration of the different theologies of the two. To "Mark" the Christian witness was the reader of his Gospel ("Let the Reader understand"). "Matthew" correctly saw this as seriously undermining the Christian assertion of a reliable chain of witnesses from Jesus to the subsequent Church as it bypassed the supposed disciples. That's why Mark's Jesus says there will be no sign for his generation and his disciples never know that he was resurrected. All consistent with "Mark's" theology that it's the Readers and not the Disciples who are the witnesses to a resurrected Jesus. Since "Matthew" changes Mark's theology to having the disciples as the witnesses "Matthew's" Jesus changes the no sign story to a yes sign story in order to predict that the disciples would be witnesses to a resurrected Jesus and then changes "Mark's" resurrection story to show the disciples as witnesses to a resurrected Jesus.

Here's my summary of the related error:

#183
Mark 8: (KJV)
12 “And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.�

Compare to:

Matthew 16: (KJV)
4 “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.�

According to “Mark� no sign will be given which is consistent with the author’s theme that Jesus’ Messiahship is a secret. The author of “Matthew� changed the Messianic secret theme of Mark to a theme that an observer can figure out through clues that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah but it takes effort on the part of the observer, Jesus won’t do it for you. So Matthew says there will be a sign given."



Joseph